Ranger: Beast Master

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Overview & Creation

Many rangers are more at home in the wilds than in civilization, to the point where animals consider them kin. Rangers of the Beast Conclave develop a close bond with a beast, then further strengthen that bond through the use of magic.

 

Beast Master Specific

Animal Companion

At 3rd level, you learn to use your magic to create a powerful bond with a creature of the natural world.   With 8 hours of work and the expenditure of 50 gp worth of rare herbs and fine food, you call forth an animal from the wilderness to serve as your faithful companion. You normally select you companion from among the following animals: an ape, a black bear, a boar, a giant badger, a giant weasel, a mule, a panther, or a wolf. However, your DM might pick one of these animals for you, based on the surrounding terrain and on what types of creatures would logically be present in the area.   At the end of the 8 hours, your animal companion appears and gains all the benefits of your Companion’s Bond ability. You can have only one animal companion at a time.   If your animal companion is ever slain, the magical bond you share allows you to return it to life. With 8 hours of work and the expenditure of 25 gp worth of rare herbs and fine food, you call forth your companion’s spirit and use your magic to create a new body for it. You can return an animal companion to life in this manner even if you do not possess any part of its body.   If you use this ability to return a former animal companion to life while you have a current animal companion, your current companion leaves you and is replaced by the restored companion.  

Companion's Bond

Your animal companion gains a variety of benefits while it is linked to you.   The animal companion loses its Multiattack action, if it has one.   The companion obeys your commands as best it can. It rolls for initiative like any other creature, but you determine its actions, decisions, attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or absent, your companion acts on its own.   When using your Natural Explorer feature, you and your animal companion can both move stealthily at a normal pace.   Your animal companion has abilities and game statistics determined in part by your level. Your companion uses your proficiency bonus rather than its own. In addition to the areas where it normally uses its proficiency bonus, an animal companion also adds its proficiency bonus to its AC and to its damage rolls.   Your animal companion gains proficiency in two skills of your choice. It also becomes proficient with all saving throws.   For each level you gain after 3rd, your animal companion gains an additional hit die and increases its hit points accordingly.   Whenever you gain the Ability Score Improvement class feature, your companion’s abilities also improve. Your companion can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or it can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, your companion can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature unless its description specifies otherwise.   Your companion shares your alignment, and has a personality trait and a flaw that you can roll for or select from the tables below. Your companion shares your ideal, and its bond is always, “The ranger who travels with me is a beloved companion for whom I would gladly give my life.”   Your animal companion gains the benefits of your Favored Enemy feature, and of your Greater Favored Enemy feature when you gain that feature at 6th level. It uses the favored enemies you selected for those features.   Dice: 1d6  

Trait

1. I’m dauntless in the face of adversity.
2. Threaten my friends, threaten me.
3. I stay on alert so others can rest.
4. People see an animal and underestimate me. I use that to my advantage.
5. I have a knack for showing up in the nick of time.
6. I put my friends’ needs before my own in all things.

  Dice: 1d6

Flaw

1. If there’s food left unattended, I’ll eat it.
2. I growl at strangers, and all people except my ranger are strangers to me.
3. Any time is a good time for a belly rub.
4. I’m deathly afraid of water.
5. My idea of hello is a flurry of licks to the face.
6. I jump on creatures to tell them how much I love them.

   

Coordinated Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you and your animal companion form a more potent fighting team. When you use the Attack action on your turn, if your companion can see you, it can use its reaction to make a melee attack.  

Beast's Defense

At 7th level, while your companion can see you, it has advantage on all saving throws.  

Storm of Claws and Fangs

At 11th level, your companion can use its action to make a melee attack against each creature of its choice within 5 feet of it, with a separate attack roll for each target.  

Superior Beast's Defense

At 15th level, whenever an attacker that your companion can see hits it with an attack, it can use its reaction to halve the attack’s damage against it.

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Class Features

Favored Enemy

Choose a type of favored enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and goblins) as favored enemies.   You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them. When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice that is spoken by your favored enemies, if they speak one at all.   You choose one additional favored enemy, as well as an associated language, at 6th and 14th level. As you gain levels, your choices should reflect the types of monsters you have encountered on your adventure.  

Natural Explorer

Choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the Underdark. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you’re proficient in.   While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:   Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area. You choose additional favored terrain types at 6th and 10th level.  

Fighting Style

At 2nd level, you adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. You can't take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.  

• Archery: You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.
• Defense: While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.
• Dueling: When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
• Two-Weapon Fighting: When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

 

Primeval Awareness

Beginning at 3rd level, you can use your action and expend one ranger spell slot to focus your awareness on the region around you. For 1 minute per level of the spell slot you expend, you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile of you (or within up to 6 miles if you are in your favored terrain): aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn't reveal the creatures' location or number.  

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature  

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.  

Land's Stride

Starting at 8th level, moving through non-magical difficult terrain costs you no extra movement. You can also pass through non-magical plants without being slowed by them and without taking damage from them if they have thorns, spines, or a similar hazard.   In addition, you have advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement.  

Hide in Plain Sight

Starting at 10th level, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. You must have access to fresh mud, dirt. plants. soot. and other naturally occurring materials with which to create your camouflage.   Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can try to hide by pressing yourself up against a solid surface, such as a tree or wall, that is at least as tall and wide as you are. You gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking actions. Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this benefit.  

Vanish

Starting at 14th level, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn. Also, you can't be tracked by non-magical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.  

Feral Senses

At 18th level, when you attack a creature you can't see, your inability to see it doesn't impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it.   You are also aware of the location of any invisible creature within 30 feet of you, provided that the creature isn't hidden from you and you aren't blinded or deafened.  

Foe Slayer

At 20th level, once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make against one of your favored enemies. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied.

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Starting Equipment

Choose one from each of the following:

1. (a) scalemail or (b) leather armor
2. (a) two shortswords or (b) two simple melee weapons
3. (a) a dungeoneer's pack or (b) an explorer's pack
4. A longbow and a quiver of 20 arrows

Alternatively, you can ignore the equipment from your class and background, and start with 5d4 x 10 gp.

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Spellcasting

By the time you reach 2nd level, you have learned to cast spells.  

Spell Slots

The Ranger table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your ranger spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.  

Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher

You know two 1st-level spells of your choice from the ranger spell list.   The Spells Known column of the Ranger table shows when you learn more ranger spells of your choice. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For instance, when you reach 5th level in this class, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd level.   Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the ranger spells you know and replace it with another spell from the ranger spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots.  

Spellcasting Ability

Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your ranger spells. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a ranger spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.   Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier

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